Beasley’s Pioneers had some strong swims in Friday’s preliminaries and carried that over to Saturday’s finals, compiling 352 points to get past Eureka (336) and Marquette (314) to repeat the team championship at their own invitational.

“I honestly had no clue coming in if we had enough to win,” Beasley said. “We swam Eureka earlier in the year and they beat us in a dual meet. We swam against Marquette earlier in the year and we tied with them. So, I knew that this meet was gonna be pretty close for us and I was proud of the way the girls swam yesterday and then today we were pretty consistent about moving up.”

Senior Addie Ludbrook led the way for Kirkwood with wins in the 200-yard freestyle and 100 butterfly.

Ludbrook’s 200 free time of 1 minute, 55.54 seconds, was nearly two-and-a-half seconds faster than her nearest competitor. Her time of 55.72 gave her the 100 butterfly title by nearly four seconds.

“It (the 200 free) was OK. I was over a second off my best time, but it could have been worse. I think it was still really good,” Ludbrook said. “That was really fun. I was going for the school record (55.65), and I was .07 off of. But I still did go a best time, so I’m pretty excited about that.”

Ludbrook finished third in Class 2 in the 100 fly last season and fifth in the 200 free. Beasley likes where his standout is with this year’s state meet just four weeks away.

“I feel really good about Addie,” he said. “She has come in this year with like a chip on her shoulder with this burning drive. I think she has some pretty big goals for herself this season. I see it on a daily basis in practice. I can tell she’s hungry. I’m really excited to see what happens by the end.”

Beasley also likes the Kirkwood Invite as a way to see where the Pioneers stack up heading down the stretch.

“I’m not super focused on where this would place us in the state because state is a whole other beast and it’s a month away,” he said. “But this is a great barometer to see where we stand as a team. It’s always a good point in our season to see where we are at.”

Eureka also finished second to the host team at last year’s Kirkwood Invite, but that final margin of 74 points was considerably bigger than this season’s 16-point margin.

“I knew we were gonna be close to Kirkwood,” Wildcats coach Anna Jovanovic said. “We took nine girls into finals to swim and we got second, so Mark (Morrison) and I are extremely happy about how they performed.”

Eureka senior standout Haiden Schoessel came into Saturday’s 50 and 100 free finals as the No. 2 seed after Friday’s preliminaries.

But the defending Class 2 champion in both events emerged victorious in both events Saturday with season-best times in each one.

Schoessel won the 50 free with a time of 23.29 seconds, much better than the 24.11 she had in the prelims and not far off her Class 2 state meet record time of 23.02.

The Arizona State commit then claimed the 100 free title with a time of 50.57, only about a half-second off her overall state meet record of 50.11 from last season.

“I’m very proud of how I swam,” Schoessel said. “Yesterday I had some technical stuff that I really needed to work on and fix. So that was the goal today to come in and get those things worked on and hopefully that would reflect in the time.”

Nerinx Hall swimmers dotted the top of the 500 free leaderboard Saturday with sophomore Kate Punnewaert repeating her Kirkwood Invite title in the event and her junior teammate Sophia Snyder right behind.

Punnewaert’s finals time of 5:13.47 was just under four seconds faster than Snyder (5:17.27).

“It’s a race I really like to swim and really want to win. I love it,” said Punnewaert, who finished fifth in Class 2 in the 500 free as a freshman last winter. “I just have to keep on practicing and keep on working on my pace.”

Snyder, like Punnewaert, was thrilled to go 1-2 with her teammate.

“It’s fun swimming against each other,” Snyder said.

One of the closest races of the day came in the 100 breaststroke.

Eureka junior Emerson Hicks successfully defended her Kirkwood Invite title in the event, but not without a strong push from Marquette senior Brooke Shadduck.

Hicks posted a time of 1:07.08 to edge past Shadduck’s 1:07.49.

“Yesterday was better because of my time (1:06.94), but it felt overall pretty good,” Hicks said. “I usually try to swim my own race, but sometimes on the walls I can see when people are near me, and I know I have to step it up a little bit more.”

Norah Rutkowski had to leave the finals early due to an orchestra commitment, but before she departed the Parkway West senior won the 200 individual medley title.

Rutkowski posted a time of 2:09.84 to get past Kirkwood junior Zoe Chalfant by just over two-and-a-half seconds.

“It was OK. I was kind of tired from prelims,” Rutkowski said. “But, I haven’t gone that time in a while, all this year.”

The two other individual titles were won by non-area athletes as Cape Central junior Sydney Ringwald captured the 100 backstroke with a time of 58.33 and her Tigers senior teammate Tommy Marriott captured the one-meter diving title with 423.9 points.

Ringwald’s win in the 100 back didn’t come easy, though, as Eureka junior Chloe Robinson shaved nearly three seconds off her prelim time to finish in with a personal-best 58.54 in what proved to be the tightest race of the day.

“She walked over before her race and said she was confident,” Jovanovic said. “That was her best time ever, so we can’t be upset about the place at all.”

Marquette won the title in the 200 free relay, while Eureka claimed the other two relay titles, winning the 200 medley and 400 free to give Schoessel four gold medals on the day.

“Those girls have a good chance of doing something awesome at state, so every time they get up and race some of the fastest swimmers in the state it just gives them a little bit more confidence,” Jovanovic said.